THE BATTLE OF BRIGHTON BEACH
[CHAPTER IV]
THE BATTLE OF BRIGHTON BEACH
Four months in camp under the passionless gaze of the great Sphinx had shaken the men into a thoroughly fit and efficient army. It had also wearied them into an ardent desire to be up and doing. Each day brought them news of the fierce fighting in Belgium and Northern France. Their cousins and friendly rivals from Canada had already won undying glory, and the Australasians chafed at the monotonous round of hard work and military discipline that seemed to lead to nothing. Not for this had they come half-way across the world; they yearned to be in the thick of it, and show how they could fight for the Empire they were so proud to serve.
The glad excitement that followed the announcement that they were detailed for active and immediate service can well be imagined; and additional joy was displayed when it became known that they were to serve on the classic battleground that borders the Dardanelles. And indeed, there is something of the miraculous in the dispatch of this composite army from two nations that dwell where a century and a half ago no white man existed to the scene of the first great adventure recorded in written history: the quest of the Golden Fleece.
Their land of the Golden Fleece lay thousands of miles away, still unscarred by any war, whatever the future may hold for it. Many of them, until they embarked on this momentous expedition, had never seen any other lands than their own. They had read of the adventures of Homer's heroes, but the scene of those exploits might as well have been laid in some other planet, for all the conception they could form of it. They knew that Alexander the Great had crossed the Dardanelles with a force no greater than their own, and had returned as Conqueror of Asia. For thousands of years the possession of those few miles of narrow sea passage had been the subject of contention among nations that had passed away for ever. Now they, the first real army of the newest nations, came to dispute its possession with an old and decadent race, which for hundreds of years had terrorized Eastern Europe.
Yes, these sheep-farmers and fruit-growers, these land agents and miners and city clerks, were the new Argonauts. They had left the Golden Fleece behind them, and the peaceful sunlit plains of Australia. They had deserted the wind-swept heights of New Zealand, where the salt breeze fans the cheek, and the snow-clad summits of the mountains are mirrored in the placid bosoms of lakes more beautiful than any the Old World has ever seen. Their quest was honour for themselves and the young races they represented; they went to fight for justice, for the unity of the Empire, for the cause of the weak and small nations of Europe. Surely their dispatch to the Dardanelles ranks with the greatest of great adventures.